John Dryden (/ˈdraɪdən/; 19 August [O.S. 9 August] 1631 – 12 May [O.S. 1 May] 1700) was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who was made England's first Poet Laureate in 1668.
Good sense and good-nature are never separated, though the ignorant world has thought otherwise. Good-nature, by which I mean beneficence and candor, is the product of right reason.
Trust reposed in noble natures obliges them the more.
Ev'n wit's a burthen, when it talks too long.
Parting is worse than death; it is death of love!
Even kings but play; and when their part is done, some other, worse or better, mounts the throne.
Fool that I was, upon my eagle's wings I bore this wren, till I was tired with soaring, and now he mounts above me.
Truth is the foundation of all knowledge and the cement of all societies.
If you are for a merry jaunt, I will try, for once, who can foot it farthest.
It is almost impossible to translate verbally and well at the same time; for the Latin (a most severe and compendious language) often expresses that in one word which either the barbarity or the narrowness of modern tongues cannot supply in more. . . . But since every language is so full of its own proprieties that what is beautiful in one is often barbarous, nay, sometimes nonsense, in another, it would be unreasonable to limit a translator to the narrow compass of his author's words; it is enough if he choose out some expression which does not vitiate the sense.
I learn to pity woes so like my own.
They say everything in the world is good for something.
What I have left is from my native spring; I've still a heart that swells, in scorn of fate, And lifts me to my banks.
Pity only on fresh objects stays, but with the tedious sight of woes decays.
Revealed religion first informed thy sight, and reason saw not till faith sprung to light.
He has not learned the first lesson of life who does not every day surmount a fear.
Welcome, thou kind deceiver! Thou best of thieves; who, with an easy key, Dost open life, and, unperceived by us, Even steal us from ourselves.
Love reckons hours for months, and days for years; and every little absence is an age.
Youth, beauty, graceful action seldom fail: But common interest always will prevail; And pity never ceases to be shown To him who makes the people's wrongs his own.
But how can finite grasp Infinity?
Time glides with undiscover'd haste; The future but a length behind the past.